The closure of lanes of traffic on highways for the purposes of highway maintenance and construction is initiated by the placement of traffic cones on the highway to provide an indication to the oncoming traffic that the lane is being closed to traffic. The placement of highway markers in some locations of the country is accomplished by the placement of highway panels or plastic barrels. In other areas of the country, lane closure is initiated by the placement of traffic cones.
Whether deploying highway panels or highway cones, the devices to be deployed and later retrieved are positioned by workers that are positioned near or on the road surface to receive the devices carried on the bed of a highway truck transporting the devices for deployment. A work basket can be connected to the rear of the highway truck to position a worker near the road surface for deployment of the highway panels or cones. With a worker supported along the side of the work basket, highway panels or cones can be positioned on the surface of the highway after another worker provides the device from the bed of the highway truck. Because of the stability that is required of a work basket to carry a worker positioned along an extreme lateral side thereof, work baskets are mounted on substantial frame members of the highway truck, while directional signs giving directions to travelers are usually hauled behind other highway trucks.
Mechanisms have been developed for the placement and retrieval of cone markers, as can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,213,464, granted on May 25, 1993, to John Nicholson, et al, in which a rotating wheel mechanism engages the cone markers guided into the wheel mechanism by a guide member, engages the base of cone marker to invert the cone for engagement with stripper bars that remove the inverted cone marker from the elevating wheel mechanism for placement of the cone marker where the cone marker can be grasped and placed onto the truck bed. The Nicholson wheel mechanism can also be utilized to deploy the cone markers by a worker dropping the cone markers in a specified orientation into a guide device into engagement with the wheel mechanism that orients the cone markers into an upright orientation on the surface of the highway.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,056,498, granted to Steven Velinsky, et al, on May 2, 2000, provides substantially the same function as the Nicholson mechanism through the engagement of the cone marker by a guide mechanism to bring the cone marker into engagement with a lift arm that grasps the cone marker an pivotally elevates the cone marker to the level of the truck bed where the cone marker is stored manually. U.S. Pat. No. 7,306,398, issued to John Doran, Jr. on Dec. 11, 2007, discloses a more complicated arrangement for transferring cone markers from a truck onto the road surface through utilization of a placement arm.
It would be desirable to provide a smaller, lighter work basket that can be manufactured economically, while providing the ability to mount the work basket relative to the highway truck at a position that would enable the work basket to be utilized at the proper height as determined by road conditions. It would also be advantageous to have such a smaller, lighter work basket be able to attach a directional sign thereto.